How to deal with an overbearing mom

Are you over 21? Scrotum-based person? Use it and handle your business. No excuse.

Outliving her is always a good option.

A phone call once a week doesn't sound that outrageous and you could reply to messages only as and when there is a need. What harm does her liking your tweets or posts do? I mean, I'm not really seeing a Gorgon-mother here.

Remind her that your choice of elder care facility later rests on her behavior now.

[quote]A phone call once a week doesn't sound that outrageous and you could reply to messages only as and when there is a need.

Manage the situation for fuck's sake. You're the one letting her infantilize you. Is she filthy rich and quite old? If not, fucking take charge.

Start today. When she texts or calls let her messages pile up for a few days. Then text her, "Saw some messages from you,. Busy. I'll call Saturday morning." Make Saturday morning or whenever your weekly communication. What the fuck could she possibly have to say that needs saying every day? IN any case, you don't need to hear it every day and that's the important thing. Shut her the fuck down. When you talk once a week, keep it pleasant. If she gets off track, steer her back. If that doesn't work say, "Gotta call. We'll chat next week." Be blunt: ask her why she tells you some stupid thing, or asks for advice when it's not really advice she wants, or goes on rants about people you don't know or care about. Keep her on a pleasant common ground.

Don't make yourself available to be her little bitch every moment of every day and you won't be. If you're a fucking adult, the act like one and take charge and don't let people trample over you at their every convenience. Conversation is two-way and you've let her write all of the rules. Seize control and set your own rules; if you do it well she won't even realize what's happened.

Remind her who signs the commitment order.

Just put down your limits and go by them. The end.

You seem very young and incapable of having personal relationships OP. No advice except to grow up.

Ha Ha ! @R1 i want to use that for my pronouns, "scrotum based"

Welcome to life OP. Anyone with a mom could've written this. This is what moms do.

[quote] My mom texts me every day and calls at least once a week

So your mother who spend 18 years of her life raising you and gave birth to you doesn't deserve a minute of your time daily and a once a week phone call?

[quote]How to deal with an overbearing mom

Pity it's not a daughter, but I do have a few ideas I could share.

This reminds me of a friend with benefits from back in the day, and his mother would call him all the time, asking him when he was gonna get married (!) and saying that nobody loved her. She was really a trial.

I love that you're mad at your sister because she long ago drew and made your mother stick to boundaries and you never have. That seems very fair-minded and healthy.

Grow a pair!

I bet she was right about the "nobody loved her" part r13.

Shady Pines, Ma... SHADY PINES!

R1 wins this thread.

R11 spot on as well. I'm guessing OP was a very needy child who clamored for his mother's attention at every opportunity. "Look at me mom. Look what I can do. Mom...mom...mom...MOM!" Your mother is now paying you back....with INTEREST!

I’m with r5. You can honor, love and respect your Mom without being a doormat. You just can’t let yourself feel guilty about having reasonable expectations of her.

Often times, parents have to be taught. They spent a large portion of your life having to guide you. Whether they were good at it or not. They normally know what boundaries are, they just aren’t accustomed to observing them with family members. And that is what family is for.

But just like it is OK for them to go over the line sometimes, it is also OK for you to tell them they have. Without guilt.

I had a friend who didn’t have a car and I did. I told him he could always call and ask me for a ride. He just couldn’t expect me to always be available. For the arrangement to work, he had to be willing to go out on a limb and I had to be willing to say no. Otherwise, I never would have been able to give him a ride and we would probably damage our relationship.

I do empathize with OP. I'm sorry to hear you're dealing with.

I do love my mother, but from a distance and during quick visits.

Kathleen lives in Florida. I live in New York. Kathleen is sometimes pushy, opinionated, obsessive, manipulative and gossipy. When she's busy and active and happy, she'll call me once a week or I'll call her.

However, if some third cousin, some relative I've never met or my lazy sister need something, Kathleen will call me at work, late at night, before I leave for work two or three days a week. It will be a month-long obsession and she'll call and call. Kathleen will talk and talk and talk and gossip and reiterate some second cousin's need for a copy of her birth certificate or my sister need for an airline ticket. When Kathleen's being overbearing and loses the ability to come up for air, I sometimes put the phone down and walk away. I let Kathleen talk and talk and talk until she's talked out. Then I thank her for calling and tell her will talk soon. Sometimes after 10 minutes Kathleen notices I'm no longer on the phone and she hangs up. Sometimes I just say "Love you, have a good night, I've got to get up early tomorrow."

For years I've encouraged her to text or e-mail, but she'd rather chat by phone. Sometimes she leaves messages on my phones, and I respond via e-mail or text so I don't have to talk to her. I no longer answer her calls after 10:00 p.m. or before 8:00 a.m. She's starting to learn.

[quote] How to deal with an overbearing mom

Storm the U.S. Capitol building and bring zipties with you. After arrest, you'll be granted a nice little break away from her.

Tell her she should have had an abortion.

*Spit take* R20!

Say to her, 'I never asked to be born!' And she'll reply, 'I never wanted to have you!'

Your victim mentality is wearisome, OP. Unless you're twelve, there's really no good excuse for your "predicament." A well adjusted person would be able to have a difficult conversation with their overbearing mother, and walk away with boundaries and a commitment to stick to them.

Given that you've evidently inherited your father's constitution and are unlikely to grow a pair any time soon, take the cowardly (yet obvious) way out: send a final text alerting her that you will be admitting yourself into a sanatorium in Tierra del Fuego for the foreseeable future, and then ghost her. Block her from your social media, block her number, move houses, change your name, etc. That should give you enough space to hopefully find your balls.

Nothing you describe is overbearing, a call once a week and a text once a day are normal levels of familial contact, and talking about nothing is also normal (and is far less threatening than prying into personal matters and telling you everything you're doing about them is wrong). This isn't helicoptering, helicoptering is calling several times a day and showing up at your job to tell your boss to be nicer to you, mysteriously popping up at the next table when you have dates, or coming home to find everything sparkling clean and a new couch in a color your mother likes in your living room.

That said, the next time you take a vacation, tell your parents that you're going on retreat and are turning off your cell phone. Give them some way to contact you in case of emergency, but no more. See how if feels. Then maybe, when you're not feeling irritated, you can have the "Mom, you don't have to text every single day" conversation, because believe me, your mother is doing this largely out of a sense of duty. She is afraid that if she doesn't demonstrate caring regularly you may think she doesn't really care.

Pull her light!!!!

Wait until she's dead and you miss her.

OP sounds like a delicate flower with social anxiety and trouble coping with normal life activities.

Seriously, a phone call once a week to talk to you mother is overbearing?

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4: Lear: "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!"

[quote]You seem very young and incapable of having personal relationships OP.

No shit, dummy. Why the hell else do you think I'm posting this on DL?

I appreciate all of your responses, especially r5 r18 r19 and r21. I kind of wrote this in a state of sleepless hysteria last night, so thanks for the chuckles. Nobody in my family is really close with each other, so it's especially hard for me to figure out what standard boundaries are and how to keep them, but it's not as bad as my post made it seem.

I love my mom dearly. Poor thing is having difficulty sleeping - I think it is due to the Trump turmoil. She has unfortunately starting texting me every night at 2 or 3am in the morning. It unfortunately wakes me right up and then I cannot go back to sleep.

It's very hard to set limits with mothers. With everyone else, it's also hard, but with mothers, of a certain type, almost impossible. Don't underestimate the skills of some moms to get around no matter what you come up with. If you have an overbearing mom who also happens to be extremely stubborn, forget it. These guys who say grow a pair or whatever have never experienced what you are going through.

Why don't you want to talk to me? I gave birth to you!

My situation is very similar to OP's. My mom tried to make me her confidant. I got more than a few text messages; I received hourlong phone calls, sometimes daily, during which she poured out her life's pain, injustices, and regrets. She also suffered from a delusional disorder, so half she shit she obsessively complained about was not even real. My dad was also a doormat who placated her so that she would STFU.

I, too, would like to hear a good solution for this dilemma.

I know a lot of posters are telling you to man up, but I understand your frustration. Oddly enough, I understand it even though I had a great relationship with my mother, but she died when I was a very young man. I never respond to these dilemmas by saying "I *wish* my mother were still here to talk to!" because that's really not helpful. Your father is not a doormat, by the way; he stopped listening years ago so she has transferred this need for attention onto you. Emulate your father instead of placating your mother.

I know it's harsh, but there are times I am so happy that I'm gay -- men are no picnic, but my God, women are burdensome, emotionally demanding, and completely exhausting. The martyrdom they exhibit and the attention they crave from their children is astounding. I can't even read advice columns anymore because they're always about insufferable female family members. (I know -- MARY!)

OP I sympathise. My smothering mother has sheltered me heavily my entire life (I had undiagnosed but obvious ASD, she was afraid I'd get bullied...which I was) and often restricted my freedom albeit in a benign way. Thanks to this, I suffered crippling social anxiety my entire adolescence, and I never dated or drank or went out partying once until I was 21 (and it was a predictably unfulfilling disaster when it did happen).

She still babies me, though I'm 28 years old with a degree and a work history, and even getting wrinkles. I've had several gentle sit-down discussions with her about how I'd like her to see me and treat me as a grown woman, but nothing gets through to her. I don't know how else to set boundaries without hurting her or damaging the relationship.

My fuck of a father is a different story. He didn't treat me with much regard or respect or care even when I was a defenceless little girl. He did the bare minimum, sure, and I'm grateful for that, but I was always envious of the girls in my school with Dads who would hug them and go to their parents' evenings and tell them they were proud of them. He is the ultimate example of the 'provider', who only shows up to keep his wife cooking his dinners and doesn't really want kids or care. Maybe my mother behaves the way she does to make up for how he's always been, idk.

It's hard to find closure in my life and have relationships of my own, because of this shitty dynamic. I want to change it, but I am lost as to how.

You said she calls once a week. That is not overbearing.

You can silence her text messages if they disturb you.

You said she "has used me as a sounding board" and then you said she infantalizes you. If she uses you as a sounding board, then it sounds like she is asking you for advice. That would mean she respects your opinions.

It sounds to me as if your mother is a little bit lonely and has few other confidants.

My mother was overprotective, always worried about the weather or some impending disaster, and she sent a lot of emails. She didn't text. She called when something felt urgent to her, or else she made my dad call and would speak through him as an intermediary, which was incredibly frustrating.

My mother died three years ago in January and I miss her every day. I would do anything to get a call or even an email from her. When I search my inbox for something and an old message from her comes up, I often cry on sight of it.

You can't imagine being in this life without your mother here. There's no way to convince you of this, but you should want to be a good friend to her and to return her love instead of resenting her for caring about you. If she asks you for your advice, then she respects your judgment and thinks you're a person of good character. I'm not going to condemn you for taking her for granted because I certainly had those moments and I understand how people can feel shackled to one another, but it sounds like you lucked out and got a pretty good mom who cares about and values you and it really will be a shame if you can't find some equilibrium in your psyche and return some of the love she dedicates to you.

Good luck.

I wish I was in your shoes, OP. My mother is 95, has the beginnings of dementia and the quarantining and social isolation is devastating her already shrunken world. Some days I get 6 phone calls, all confusion-fueled cries for attention. I would gladly trade places with you any day OP. You’ve got it easy.

My daughter used to complain that I was an overbearing mom, but I took care of that little problem.